


I Say Love, You Hear This

by Barkour



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-18 01:25:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7293805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barkour/pseuds/Barkour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A missing scene: Judy and Nick, in the museum, with the feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Say Love, You Hear This

Nick caught Judy as her leg buckled. 

"Whoa, there. How's that leg holding up?" 

He hooked his arm more firmly under her shoulders and clasped her hand in his own. She felt absurdly as if he were leading her to dance.

"Well," she said, "I did get stabbed along my calf." She tried to put weight on her foot but winced away. "Does it look bad?"

Nick ducked his head to examine her leg. Gripping his paw, Judy stuck the leg out at a jaunty, some might even say sexy angle. He gave her a dry sidelong look.

"Other than the blood," he said, "and the gaping wound? I mean, were you even looking where you were going?"

"Hey," she protested. "Rabbit, remember." Judy pointed to her ears with the carrot pen heavy in her hand. "You're the one with the night vision. Do you think the pants are ruined?"

"What, is that a joke?" Nick let go of her paw so he could cup his snout to yell, "Hey, can we get a medic down here or are you Buffalo Bobbies too busy terrorizing the sheep?"

"My mom bought me these pants," Judy said, "and they were not cheap, these are really good workman's jeans." Her ears dropped. "Oh, my gosh, my mom."

"Medics first, then Moms," he suggested. "Down here, guys. Make sure you turn on all the bells and whistles. She did save the city." He raised his voice. "Yes, that would be Officer Judy Hopps of the ZPD. Uh, savior of Zootopia."

"I resigned," she told him as medics dropped a ladder into the pit. Two made to descend.

"Against my advice," said Bogo loudly from above. He hitched a hoof on the edge and leaned forward, arms on his knee. "But the precinct does have an opening. Seems a fine officer left us and now I've a desk to assign."

"Sir," said Judy. "I--" She swallowed heavily. 

One medic began constructing a simple harness system on the ladder. Her partner, a towering brown bear, came to collect Judy.

Bogo pressed up off his leg. He adjusted his belt; typical alpha herd mammal, Nick muttered.

"Later, Hopps." He paused in shadow, the gloom-light split by his horns. "And don't think you're off the hook for this reckless behavior."

"You might say thank you," Nick shouted after him. "Can you believe this guy? Hey, now, careful with her. She's a bunny so you need to be gentle."

"Nick, they're professionals," said Judy. "This is their job. I'm sure this isn't the first time they've had to carry a rabbit out of the museum with a mammoth tusk wound in the calf."

The bear hupped Judy into her thick arms. "Were you hit on the head at any time?"

"No, I'm fine," said Judy, "well, except for the leg injury. Do the jeans look salvageable to you?"

The medic considered Judy's leg then gave her a glum look. Judy sighed. 

"My mom's going to be so upset."

"About the jeans?" said Nick.

"Who knew you were such a worrywart?"

The medics buckled Judy into the harness and began guiding her up the ladder.

"Wait," Judy said, "wait, I need to--" She turned around in the harness, already a third of the way up.

Nick smiled at her. It crooked at his black lips; it twitched in his cheek. His eyes were open and fixed. 

"Pretty sure the guys in blue will need a statement from me. But I'll catch up with you. Get that leg looked at."

"Nick," she said. She stretched her paw out to him. "Nick, I'm sorry."

He slipped around the bear and reached to brush his clawed fingertips across her own unfurling fingers. His smile bowed.

"Me too, Carrots."

"And," she said as they resumed lifting her, "and I couldn't have done any of this without you." Her paw swiped through the air, the distance too great. "You're my partner, I don't care if you never apply, you're still my partner."

Nick's fingers turned in toward his palm pads. His ears twitched as she spoke. He drew a breath and it filled his lanky chest.

"I bet you say that to all the foxes who save your life."

A hesitancy, near missed, in the plural. He hunched his shoulders.

"I mean it," Judy called to him where he stood alone beneath them. Nick had tucked both paws in his pockets. She felt at her own. "Nick--"

"What is it, Carrots?" He cleared his throat. "Got lots to do here."

She tossed him the carrot pen. Startled, Nick sprung up on his toes to snatch it out of the air. There were those fox-like reflexes she'd heard so much about.

"Get this to Bogo right away. And Nick!"

"Are you always this chatty when you're going into shock?" he yelled.

Judy smiled at him from the top. The adrenaline, burnt away, left her leg throbbing as if a hot knife were situated parallel with the bone.

"I missed you," she said; and some of the pain was in her voice, and she flinched to hear it.

Nick held the pen in the loose grip of one paw. He said, "Yeah," and he clicked the pen twice, then, ears flicking, he lowered it and resumed slouching. He didn't say anything else, not then. He only watched as the medics unbuckled her and carried her away, away from where he might see her or she might see him, to a stretcher that carried her even farther from him. 

But it did not hurt this time, the separating, or it did not hurt as it had before. I was so afraid you'd hate me, she thought. Her eyes stung. Judy smiled helplessly at the roof of the ambulance. 

The medics buckled her in. The bear began asking her medical history as her partner, a llama, fixed a line to Judy's arm and a cuff on the other.

"No, no allergies," said Judy, thinking of the long nights at the burrow, so much longer than she'd ever remembered them. "Oh. Except in spring. Hayfever."

"Happens to the best of us."

A tiger officer, Khan, knocked on the ambulance door and said, "Lemme ride along."

"You don't have to do that," said Judy, trying to sit up. 

The bear put a single finger on her chest and laid her out flat on her back.

Khan shrugged. "It's what you do."

"You do?"

The van rocked a measure as he sat on the other side of the little space. His dark-lined eyes creased.

"Sure," he said easily, as if anything had been easy of late for tigers in Zootopia. "In the ZPD, we do. When one of our own gets hurt."

A lump stuck in her throat. Judy choked on it. The medics burst into action as she gasped, "I'm fine! It's okay! I'm just very emotional!"

Khan clucked. "Bunnies," he said. 

"You're telling me," said Nick as he launched into the ambulance. "What, did you miss me?"

"Sir!" said the llama medic.

"I thought you had to report to Bogo," Judy blurted.

"Oh, I slipped away," Nick said, "it was real easy. Hey, scoot over, would you, Spots?"

"I'm a tiger, you got eyes?"

"Two of 'em," said Nick. "Shouldn't this thing be moving? You've got a city hero on that gurney." He clapped his paws together. "Surely a hospital or a clinic of some sort--"

"Unless you're bringing any more visitors?" the llama directed to Judy. "Then we're good. Oi! Marcia! We got extra weight!"

"I can smell it," yelled the driver.

"That's offensive," said Nick. "Are you suggesting rabbits smell badly?"

Khan laughed. 

"Sir, you are rocking the van," said the bear, then "sir!" she snapped at Nick as he crossed the little aisle.

"So, how you holding up?" he asked Judy. He grasped her paw. "Couldn't stay away from you for another minute. You got me trapped, Carrots."

She clasped his paw just as tightly. Her smile ached.

"Bogo scared you, didn't he," she said.

"What, that Playsquirrel centerfold?"

"Ugh," said Judy, "I hate Playbunny and all the other ... stupid magazines." She scowled at the roof. The bunnies in tiny leotards: just more over-sexed stereotyping.

"Hate to disagree with you there, but!" said Nick, "I figure after that excellent performance I can allow that you might have a point."

The bear gave her the go ahead to move her other arm; they'd got the blood pressure readings they needed. Judy engulfed his paw in both of hers.

"You did great, too," she reassured him. "You could really be an amazing actor. I mean, I knew you wouldn't go savage, but Bellwether to-o-otally believed it."

"You got morphine in that drip?" Nick asked the medics. "Good, that's great stuff. And no. I was referring to your spectacular apology earlier this afternoon. Wow! We have had a busy day."

"Oh, crackers!" said Judy. "I forgot about the truck!"

"You were planning on driving it back tonight?"

Judy looked at him witheringly. "Yes."

"I don't know where you get the energy."

"Rabbits," said Khan. He was engrossed with his phone.

"That's a stereotype. Just because I'm, um, very high-energy, and..." 

She was losing focus. Judy squinted at her paws. Why was she holding a Pawpsicle? No, that was Nick's hand. "Oh, whew," she said, "I almost ate it."

"They do have you on the good stuff," said Nick, looking impressed. "You hear that, Spots? He's not listening."

"Please stop talking so much," said Judy. "You talk so much. You talk a lot. I can't listen to you talk."

"Then why do you have such huge ears?"

"I wasn't acting," she said, remembering then. "When I said. I'm sorry. And you can if you want. Hate me. Forever and ever."

Nick was suddenly right before her; he leaned over the gurney; his tie flopped across her face and she batted at it. He was wiping at her eyes with the tie. 

"I'll stop talking if you stop crying, deal?"

"But I don't want you to stop crying."

He pinched his tie over her nose and tugged. "No. I stop talking. You stop crying."

"I can't," she said sadly. She tried to pet at his tie but missed and petted his neck instead. The fur was soft there, so silky soft, softer than anything Judy had ever touched in her whole life, was what she thought. "I hurt your feelings. And, and you were mad. And I was wrong because I was, I was a jerk. A butt jerk. An ignorant and, a self-congratulatory butt jerk."

"Oh, my God, Carrots," said Nick, "you are very lucky I gave the carrot pen to that rhino cop."

"Which one?" muttered Khan.

"Go back to Sugar Stampede," Nick snapped at him.

"And you can hate me," Judy said, very earnestly as she clung to his paw. "And it's okay. And I love you. And I'll be sad forever. But it's okay."

"This is a much worse apology," said Nick, "and also unnecessary." Gently he picked her paw off his throat and lowered it to the gurney again.

"Two minutes ETA," the bear said gruffly.

"I'm sorry," said Judy.

"For being a butt jerk?" Nick smiled. He held both her paws, very briefly. "Apology accepted, butt jerk. And I'm..."

Judy blinked at him. Her ears felt limp, her fingers and toes toasty. It was all very comfortable. She liked that Nick held her paws. She liked that he held them so neatly, as if his paws and her paws were complementary in form. 

Nick cleared his throat. He let go of the one paw to pat the back of the other.

"Well," he said. "I'm fond of you too, Carrots."

Judy smiled. Nick, his ears flicking and his eyes (so green, like growing things, like spring green, like spring springing in after winter) flicking too, smiled lopsided at her.

"I should have stayed at the crime scene," said Khan.

"You know she's probably not going to remember any of that," said the bear.

"I don't want to remember any of that," said Khan.

Nick, still smiling down at Judy, said, "Great."

Judy said, "Liar. Liar. You love me. You totally love me!" She laughed.

Nick, green, green eyes lidded, said, "Prove it."

Judy said, with great dignity, "I will," and then she slept, and when she woke up again Nick was still there.

"Wow," he said, "I had no idea rabbits could snore like that."

"I don't snore!" said Judy.

"It was so cute too," said Nick, "can I say that? Look, I recorded it on my phone. Wait, wait. This is my favorite part. Did, did you hear it? That's snot."

"Annoying fox," Judy grouched.

Nick grinned at her, and under the pasty hospital lighting he still showed vivid and red and bright like a waving flag. Come here, come here, here I am.

"Congested bunny," he said, and Nick offered her the bedside box of tissues.


End file.
